Trace
by WolfBane2
Summary: Robin oneshot. It was the strong who survived to write the history. She was strong. But even she knew that True History was only true in the eyes of the victors. But then again, she didn't really care.


_"History is the opinions of the victor."  
- William Buckley Jr_

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History. She knew what history was. Her entire existence was about history, for even this second that was now became history as she thought of it. But history was to her what she imagined faraway places were to cartographers: Even if you dedicated your life to it, you still couldn't go there, and what you wrote and said about it did not affect its truth, so your dedication did not really matter so much. Somehow, the knowing that her sole purpose in life might not matter so much did not matter so much to her. It was something to do. If she found it, then more power to her. If she didn't…well, if she didn't, then at least she'd never grow bored. What was she looking for, again?

Ah, yes, history. True history. It always came back to that, when everything else left. Why did she want to find that, again? Because she did. She needed no other reason. Besides, there was something about the way the names and dates ran across the tablets…something simple, something unquestioning. These things had happened, in this order, by these people, in these places, and these were the results of them. That was all, back and back and back. There was no black and white, only black, for history did not have biases. Good and evil did not exist in history, only winners and losers. The strong survived, and continued to write. The weak were simply out of the story.

She was strong. She was still here, wasn't she? She thought she was. She must be, for she was still there to read the writings of the ones who had been strong. That was good. It was good that she was strong, and still here. Here was a good place to be.

Strong…the one called Luffy, he was strong. Hadn't she placed herself under his authority, for now that was the real now, not the now that had been? Yes, she had. Authority was supposed to be strong, she had a suspicion this was so. She could hear his pack squabbling among themselves on the deck above her now, but their words were indecipherable and it was doubtful they meant much anyway. Although they appeared trivial, his pack was strong; they fought and killed without sorrow. Killing was not a terrible thing in the eyes of history. If you killed, it meant you were still there to be a character in the story. Dying…dying was not a good thing to do in history, because if you died, then you weren't in the story anymore. Where did characters go when they left the story? She didn't know. She didn't really care. If nothing else, she knew that she wanted to continue reading the story, and to do that she must remain alive. If alive meant killing, it was acceptable. It was only a plot device, after all. She could never leave the story until she knew the beginning. Wait, wasn't she supposed to have read the beginning before the rest? Most stories worked that way, didn't they? She thought they did. She'd read many stories. But history needed no reasoning; the ending came before all, and then worked backward from there. It was all right. She'd always liked to read the spoilers.

It occurred to her that when she had sat down in her bunk, she had placed a glass of water beside her left hand. It must have warmed by now, but wasting fresh water was an unwise action when you were on a ship in the middle of a salty ocean. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. Who had said that? She thought she had read those words on a dusty page of a library book, or else seen it carved into the hull of a ship that had drifted into harbor with its entire crew dead and decaying. She gazed down upon the glass, and discovered it empty. She raised it experimentally. Yes, it was definitely empty. Hadn't it been full a moment ago? She must have drunk it, or else she had sat here for so long that the water had evaporated with the passing of days. But no, that was a foolish idea, she must have drunk it.

Her throat was dry.

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Author's Note: Point? There was supposed to be a point to this? (thinks) Hm…let's just say that there isn't enough Robin fanfiction and that it is possible for an empty water glass to inspire extremely bizarre one-shots. I really swore it had been full the last time I looked at it.


End file.
